I’m down with the flu at the moment, so I wasn’t really looking forward to doing a detailed write-up of all the awesome stuff Apple was going to show off today. So, Tim Cook, thanks for talking about nothing for almost two hours straight. The only mildly interesting thing is a slightly specbumped iPhone 4, dubbed the iPhone 4S, which has a faster processor and graphics chip, better camera, and a few other improvements here and there to bring it in line with Android phones launched earlier this year. Sadly, Apple insists on the teeny tiny 3.5″ screen, which is too small even for my girly fingers (I’m not kidding, I have to buy gloves in women’s clothing stores). For the rest, it was a long rundown of iOS5 features we already knew, and improvements to voice recognition – which is something WP7, Android, and every other self-respecting mobile operating system does already anyway. They do claim it will sport a more natural feel to it, but only time will tell how well it’ll work outside of pre-recorded and widely tested on-stage demos.
Looks like I got lucky, because I ordered a galaxy s2 yesterday. I was considering canceling my order since I knew the iphone was gonna get refreshed today, but it looks like I made the right choice.
I have one of those phones.
The screen is really nice. I would say it’s better then the iPhone 4/4S although I know some folks disagree.
The camera is ok but not awesome. It takes 8 mp captures but the colors are a bit yellowish in lower light. In general I like the iPhone 4 camera better.
The graphics performance is better on the S2 then the iPhone 4 but it won’t hold a candle to the iPad and so will probably be a bit weaker then the 4S.
Overall UI response is a bit less fluid then an iPhone 4 but I think that’s a factor of Android then the phone.
It’s the best Android device we have certainly.
Edited 2011-10-04 21:09 UTC
6 days till Google/Samsung announcement. So SGS2 may not be the best Android phone for long….
FYI, you can change the color settings on the camera on the old Galaxy S and I assume the Galaxy S II. The default settings most definitely do some funky things with the colors. Open the camera and on the left side of the screen there is an arrow. If you click the arrow it will open a menu which has a settings button at the bottom.
Also wanted to point out that Samsung’s TouchWiz is also most definitely not fluid. I personally ditched it pretty quick. My personal favorites are Zeam Launcher and Launcher Pro.
Not much stuff worth talking about indeed. Myself, I think the most interesting part was that “Find My Friends” feature, which felt to me like yet another creepy step towards a “no such thing as private life” society. And though I don’t follow mobile news much, I guess something like this already existed in an app form…
So… Good luck with that flu, Thom, and see you next week for that Ice Cream Sandwich announcement ?
Edited 2011-10-04 19:29 UTC
It’s called Google Latitude.
Just out of curiosity… Is that already integrated in the Android API, or are Apple at least the first to introduce this as an OS feature ?
Edited 2011-10-04 19:50 UTC
Pretty sure it is a built in feature of WP7 based on what i’ve read, although having never seen one first hand…
Dude, you forgot the golden rule:
If Apple released it, they also invented it. It’s also automatically awesome.
It’s so awesome taht I want to sleep…
Latitude has been a built-in feature of Android since version 1.0.
HTH
Thanks for the answer !
woohoo!! looks like apple ran out of ideas to steal from small struggling tech companies.
Someone somewhere is going to believe it is new and revolutionary. Better late than never..
Nice to see Apple decreasing the iphone prices.
For something Apple never promised. Only something the media “claimed/invented” to keep the masses in line.
Would have been nice for them have added a bigger screen, USB storage, sideloading, FLAC/MKV support, etc… But it’s not like Apple has trouble selling the units and their closed ecosystem.
What I am wondering if Apple added a much needed camera button the right side of the phone.
We are disappointed because this phone is very outdated even before it’s released. Media’s got nothing to do with it.
What phone is ‘current’ but your standards?
I mean, I am just curious what you expected Apple would actually announce beyond what they announced (other then like a new shape or whatever)?
Also at this point we actually don’t know anything about the battery life, the quality of the camera, the performance of the graphics.
They might be ‘industry leading’ or they might not but we don’t really know so how do you know the phone is ‘outdated’.
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Since this is Apple’s flagship model, I expect it to be better than the competition. It isn’t. Number one request: bigger screen – 3.5″ is far too small, even Jobs himself admitted as such when talking about 7″ tablets. 512 MB RAM is very little. Dual-core 1 Ghz is very little compared to current dual-core 1.5 Ghz (with quad-core arriving any day now in new phones). Software-wise, it’s all just catch-up to what the competition has to offer.
Of course, you may find iOS more pleasant to use. I find it cumbersome and chaotic, especially compared to the consistent and logical interface of WP7 (I’m getting my first Android phone next week, Galaxy SII white, so I’ll be able to say something about Android too then).
I do agree that the WP7 interface is the best of the bunch. Lots of people like the simplicity of the iOS screen (it’s dead simple) but I personally prefer the live tile metaphor of Windows.
I disagree on the screen size. I don’t have any problems typing and I would actually prefer my smart phone to be a bit smaller rather than bigger. I very much hope Apple does not go bigger in the future (or at least offers it as an option).
That Galaxy S2 your buying has a dual core 1ghz chip and that’s the Samsung flagship so you think that’s outdated too or is just about the screen 😉
I don’t actually know what RAM the iPhone 4S has but it’s not an apples to apples comparison. If you’ve ever done ANY development on Android you know that memory is a huge/huge problem. We had to jump all sorts of hoops to handle image manipulation functions even on the S2 where the same operations worked ‘out of the box’ on a 3GS. That’s why Android devices pack more RAM in there; they need it.
No, the SII has either 1.2 ghz dc or 1.5 ghz dc.
mea-culpa; when I get the iPhone 4S I’ll do a side by side, it would be interesting to see the performance
I’d predict better performance for the 4S, simply because the A5 in the iPad 2 is pretty damn impressive. With Android, you rely on the manufacturer to develop the hardware and port the OS to it. There are a lot of horror stories floating about regarding QA and Android.
I think the S2 is outdated, its been kicking around for more than half a year now. There’s a new Nexus coming, and well, it sounds like it’ll have a 720p screen. yummy.
Because they have true multiâ€tasking, you’re right!
Actually it’s just because memory management in Android is poor in various frameworks, especially in the imaging stuff. But as I said this should be fixed in 3.1.
‘True multitasking’ in Android is not really practical. If you do anything in the background that is CPU intensive or network intensive it kills the battery so you can only do very specific stuff which you can do in iOS.
I appreciate it’s a philosophical thing. Apple does not let developers do it because they don’t want a poor experience for a user. Google is all about doing whatever the heck you want and if people get a bad experience then it’s their fault for installing bad stuff. Both points have their merits.
It’s not poor, it’s horrible. And 3.1 does not fix it, it only bumps the heap size of the app for tablets so the problem “magically” disappears.
I have never understood how exactly multitasking kills your battery. Running tasks A and B simultaneously consumes just as much energy and clock cycles as running first A and then B. Or am I totally wrong?
Edited 2011-10-05 12:44 UTC
That’s not so simple. Battery life is any decent in mobile devices only because the cpu is usually idle at 99.9% of time. That’s why faster cpu’s exhibit better battery life (which is counter-intuitive), because they expand the idle part.
That rule goes down to the os level, badly written apps can kill battery even running on the background by not letting the os put cpu in deep sleep state.
Besides that, the very process of going from idle to active is quite involving so the more frequently some process wakes up os to check something (eg. using polling instead of blocking) even if in effect it doesn’t do anything the more the battery life is hurt.
Google has even implemented some hacks to Linux kernel (that were so bad that Linux community ultimately rejected them resulting in kernel fork) to make badly behaving apps have lesser impact of cpu wakeup frequency.
If you want access to more memory, you use off-heap memory(in short, don’t use Java heap for big image manipulation because it has a hard limit). And iOS is not without it’s problems either.
In addition, Android has more processes actually running concurrently.
I also disagree on the screen size. 3,5″ is not tiny at all, I currently have a phone with a 3,2″ screen (LG P500 Optimus One) and am contemplating buying the SE Xperia Mini Pro (3″ and physical keyboard).
If I can live with the 3,2″, and the millions of users worldwide can as well, small is still a valid option for smartphones.
Of course, that might mean that on Android, smaller screens are still usable and on iOS they aren’t
I dont know. The processor and RAM don’t seem to hurt the iPad 2. The graphics performance for GL is supposedly way better for iPad 2 compared to 1.5Ghz dual core devices, so one could assume the 4S might have a similar bump. Who knows?! It’s not something I’d be speculating wildly about. The proof will be in the pudding.
Depends how you define better I guess.
3.5″ is fine for me. Given that millions can type fine on it, I don’t think it’s as big of an issue as you make it out to be. Is the iPad better than the Samsung Tab because it has a bigger screen? No, it’s just different.
You’re falling into the techy trap of thinking that faster hardware is actually better or that anyone cares. The only thing that’s important is how fast the thing is to the end user.
Haven’t you learned anything from the Xoom?
Actually iCloud is a huge advantage that no one else has. The voice recognition looks far more sophisticated than what I’ve used on Android (VLingo). The rest is catch up, I agree.
I like to carry my phone in my jeans pocket. A bigger screen would made that pretty impossible. In fact, sometimes I would like my phone to be smaller.
Speed is always good, but I think that having a longer battery time is better for a phone. I’m ready to have a not-so-fast phone and not have to plug it all the time because it’s running out of power.
My 4.5″ HTC HD7 fits in jeans pockets just fine. In fact, it’s not THAT much larger than the iPhone 4.
Meh, there’s only one bulge I want to have in my jeans, and it’s not a phone
The HD7 is very thin, and the very tapering edges means there really isn’t a bulge at all – unlike the iPhone 4 with its straight and sharp edges.
As for bulges in pants – unless there’s a pretty lady in the room, I’d rather have no bulge at all
.
Your anti apple/iPhone campaign is getting tiresome.
I have lived with and used an iPhone 4 every day for 14 months. It’s a highly polished device that meets the needs of many. From hands-on experience with a variety of Android phones, I can opine that the iPhone is not outdated currently, and the under-the -hood changes to the 4S model simply make a good thing better; especially with the pricing scheme announced by Apple.
Nope. According to Engadget, the volume up button is used for this, which means of course no intermediary focus/anti red eye position. Guess my trusty compact camera is not yet beaten
Edited 2011-10-04 20:23 UTC
Apparently the Volume Up button now is able to function as a camera button.
No dedicated button, but on ios5 they opened the use of the volume button as camera shutter
You may need a refresher course:
1. It’s new
2. Apple made it
3. Hence, it is the most FabuloSpectacuMazing thing ever.
4. Buy now!
You think a pervasive system level AI that can point out inconsistencies in your requests and ask you clarification questions is an ‘improvement to voice recognition’
I have an Android phone and it’s voice recognition is nothing like that (although it is much better integrated then ‘voice control’)
I actually think Siri (and no doubt whatever Android and Windows responds with) will usher in the next era of voice interfaces and that’s really a big deal. Especially in the context of ‘the future of computing’.
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I just hope its better than the voice recognition in OS X.
Yeah, never heard that one before. I’m also excited about the paperless office.
The problem with voice recognition is that it basically it needs to be redeveloped for every language, so the cost becomes to high for it to become pervasive. Without it being an universal feature it can’t change the global face of computing.
Sure, but if anyone can do it, it’s a company with more cash than several Eurozone countries 😉
Google and Microsoft are not slouches either.
1)Fast camera phone:
Waiting 3 seconds for a phone based camera is apparently a sin.
2) Better graphics than Game consoles:
I’m not sure I believe that, but doesn’t really matter I don’t care how many FPS my phone pulls.
Well, if your GPU only needs to power a 3.5″ screen, vs your Xbox or PS3 that need to drive at least as 42″ screen at 720p.
Its not really about how many pixels your pushing anymore and it’s certainly not about the screen size.
That said the Wii is only 480p if memory serves so it pushes less pixels then the iPhone.
In general the graphics of the iPad 2 and – I expect – the iPhone 4S are really very impressive.
iPhone frame buffer is just about 30% less than console @ 720p.
Obviously GPU is not as good as console, but it is the most powerful GPU in smartphone market.
Edited 2011-10-05 13:47 UTC
Speed is always good. And with the camera it is especially noticeable when you need to take a picture but it takes ages to start and then the opportunity is lost.
I don’t use it, thus it doesn’t matter. Not much of an argument. The reality is that the iPhone/iPod are replacing handheld gaming devices. So it is important.
Great. Amazing!
Coming to a public place near you, the “sequel” to obnoxious teenagers blasting their music from the craptastic built-in speakers – obnoxious hipsters screaming “launch the tweetbook!” to their phones.
Fun times approaching!
Seriously though, pretty boring stuff. I don’t think even the most hardcore apple fans will try to claim that they again “invented” something with this release.
… yes I will get off your lawn 🙂
The 4 S looks great to me. The grumbles are coming from people who wanted it to be called the 5 and to have a new form factor. In other words: the dumb stuff let you down.
The new software looks great: notifications are far nicer than any Android device. The integration is tighter than any other system, including WP7. The Find my Friends bit is genius.
The hardware looks plenty competitive. The battery life *destroys* the competition. The voice bit is far beyond anything any other device is doing. The camera is among the best available (f2.4? Sweet!) on smart phones. The processor is top of class, and anything more would likely destroy battery.
The complaints I see here are ridiculous:
* MKV and FLAC? NEVER! They’ll destroy the CPU and battery life!
* A larger screen? I know no one who has complained about this, and I’ve deployed dozens of these devices.
* NFC? No one actually supports it yet!
Seriously, there’s reverse Apple-cism going on here. I think this crowd hates it BECAUSE it’s Apple and would need it to turn lead to gold to make you happy. This device is a great iteration of the iPhone. That’s what it is: an respectable iteration.
Not sure about WP7, since Microsoft is ruling the integration world there, but the most tightly integrated experience is in Android. iOS is a world of loose apps that live in their own little realities.
Yes, since it’s a rebranded version of Google Latitude it becomes genius….
Have you used the voice recognition or are you just blindly believing everything that was said?
IMO it really matters where the processing happens. On Android Google does the heavy lifting and although it is wrong from time to time I am still amazed what crazy stuff it will understand. And it improves with _every_ use.
IMO if the 4s does it onboard it will suck for searching some actor name or movie or company or Product or or .. there is more to voice recognition than just speech recognition.
As for the specs .. they might OK now, but not for another 15 months. If the Nexus Prime really gets a 1280×720 screen this will look old really fast (but still sell millions to the iFaithfull) Android phones already have a gig of RAM and dual core 1,5 Ghz or even more. This has 800Mhz to 1000Mhz, right? Are they telling this time?
I don`t give a crap about cameras, but my old Nokia had 12 mpixel with Carl Zeiss optics like 4 years ago.
Edited 2011-10-05 00:52 UTC
Engadget had this to say about it:
The most impressive part was the demo of Siri, the new assistant that lets you do just about anything you can do on your phone — but with your voice. We tried to psych it out with a bunch of random requests, including the history of Chester, Vermont (a lovely town) and the best Ramen places in San Francisco. Siri never faltered, never missed a beat. It worked as well as Scott’s demo up on the stage. There’s nothing better to say than that. We even sent ourselves a few text messages, which Siri transcribed to a T. Of course, the lady on the other end still sounds eerily robotic, but we’re hoping for smoother responses from the alien within in a future update.
For now, I think this is one area where Apple has Android beat. Sure, you can talk to an Android phone, but can you tell it to schedule a meeting with Joe at noon on Friday, and then have the phone smart enough to tell you that you already have something scheduled at that time?
Edited 2011-10-05 01:16 UTC
Does it work in any but bunch of western european languages? If not so, it’s not honest to pitch it on seemingly global promotion. (not saying Android is any better).
Oh, come on. The camera is the one found in Sony Ericsson’s phones. It’s a lot better than the one in the old iPhone4, but it’s still not as good as the ones found in Nokia N8 and N9.
Interestingly, Apple claimed the old one would be one of the best around as well, but at least that time it was soon proven to be utter shit.
And yet, according to Flickr, it is still the most popular camera used to take pictures.
Honestly I am sure there are better cameras on phones but your sort of missing the point. Very few people but a phone for it’s camera. They buy the package as a whole.
It does not matter if some esoteric device running on a marginal platform has a better camera, no one will buy it. Which is why:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203405504576602762590…
and
http://seekingalpha.com/article/297526-apple-s-killing-fields Nokia has lost 76% of it’s market since the iPhone came out
The camera in 4S is even better then the 4 and the 4 had a camera good enough for 99% of the population. The camera battle is over, it’s now a commodity.
Nonsense. People still buy phones for the camera. Some of them buy the iPhone, as they ask what’s the better one and there’s always a dozen or so liars who will claim Apple’s stuff is the best, no matter how poorly it rates.
I thing what apple managed to do is to have best AVC compression resulting in best video quality. It’s camera might have not been the best but it stomped over other phones in video quality (details, crispness, dynamic range), including N8 (dunno about N9, must read some reviews). Heck, it’s video quality is in many aspects better than in my Nikon D90.
Besides, it simply impossible to fit N8 class sensor and lenses (seemingly besting even middle class P’n’S cameras, if you are about mobile photograhy don’t expect anything better for a long time to come) without making the phone equally chunky. That’s a simple tradeoff, that’s why n9 has actually worse sensor (compensated with 1/2.2 lens) than N8.
Edited 2011-10-05 20:31 UTC
Did I miss the part in the Apple presentation where they showed free turn-by-turn nav for iOS or did Apple drop the ball on that again?
this time the 4S won’t cut it. its a solid phone but it’s nothing *really special*.
The Siri is cool too, but once again, it’s not exactly what will make a lot of people buy it.
Right now, Google has all for itself, the fans, the wind, etc.
We should be careful tho, if we do not want to live in a Google world. They control all the modern communication mediums.
– Phone? Check – going to be a monopoly in 5 years at this rate
– Browser? Check – going to be a monopoly in 5 years at this rate
– Search engine? Check – quasi monopoly
– Email? Check – quasi monopoly outside the enterprise world
– Social medias? Check – rising up fast
– Tracking, analysis, advertising, etc? Check – world first by such an immense margin
Be careful when the “not too evil” becomes “slightly evil” and in the late days “absolutely evil” as it always ever happens 😉
Apple has the best selling phone world wide, the best selling music player world wide, the best selling laptop world wide and the best selling desktop in the US.
I am pretty sure none of that will change over the next 12 months until iPhone 5.
Personally, I am super excited about Siri. I think it’s the dawn of a new age where we’ll start talking to our computers (finally).
Perhaps it will be Google who brings us computers we can talk in the end, or Microsoft, but just now Siri looks like the best you can get.
I just hope Apple builds some sort of API for Siri so developers can make apps that can have that interface.
Did I fall asleep for 10 years or should I ask you to smoke what you are smoking there… Best selling laptop? They sell about 4mil Macs in total worldwide. No way in hell are they selling more laptops than Dell or HP.
I think they mean for a specific model…such as MacBook Pro or MacBook Air. But yeah, they should have been more specific.
And even then I doubt Apple sells more Airs or Pros than Dell Vostros.
You would be mistaken sir 🙂 Dell Laptops are not even close to the top. Toshiba and Apple currently offer the best selling devices by a wide margin and even HP has better selling models then anything from Dell.
This conversation is really only going to go in circles. Apple has a very nicely selling laptop, but its status at the top of the heap is mostly because other companies segment their models more aggressively, so there are 50 different kinds of vostros or XPSes, but only one Macbook Air. Suffice to say that Apple is shipping plenty of units and making plenty of money, so it’s not like they’re going to stop making Macs or go out of business.
There are pretty much as many Vostros as there are Airs.
Remember, that unlike their iOS line, Macs are configurable….
Maybe they meant best as in better than the others in features and reliability. Just like apple care is the best extended warranty because after 3 years on a macbook pro, BOOM. You’re gonna need it.
I didn’t see any mention of LTE on Verizon; that’s gonna be a deal breaker for me, and I’m sure many others as well.
Yeah Verizon got shafted. Arguably Sprint too.
Sprint must be going–Oh crap, what did we just do…
Right, because Sprint entered into a deal with Apple without having any idea whatsoever of the features the phone they would be supporting on their network would have…
“What die-hard Apple fans (or Oracle/Microsoft/etc) usually ignore is that the first victims of a company focus switch from innovation to litigation is their own user base.” [1]
Sure, Siri might prove better than Android voice search, and 4S’ A5 and 8MP camera might put outperform the SGS2 CPU and camera, but there’s no hiding it, 4S is marginally better than 4 – certainly nothing close to the wild speculation that circulated the Internet in the past couple of months.
I could only assume that die-hard Apple fans will continue to pay exaggerated prices from an semi-competitive smart-phone (Here in Israel, the i4 costs *more* than the SGS2!) but in the end, even they will have to acknowledge that Apple is clearly headed in the wrong direction.
… And to quote myself again:
“Now, if anyone here thinks that the sequence of events listed above is far-fetched – please consider this: Could iPhone 5 and Windows Phone 8 be better suited to warn off Android, if Apple and Microsoft would have *chosen* to spend the 4.5B$ they spent on buying Nortel’s patent portfolio on getting a better product out of the door? What would have better served their loyal customer base?” [2]
– Gilboa
[1] http://www.osnews.com/permalink?483138
[2] Google 12.5Bn Motorola Mobility purchase:
– MM actually had real assets to offer – beyond a huge outdated patent portfolio.
– There’s no doubt that switching to litigation mode hurts both side of the equation. Google was forced to counter the Nortel deal or roll over and die.
– It remains to be seen if MM purchase will have a positive or negative effect on Android eco-system development while it more-or-less obvious that the Nortel deal had a negative effect on the iOS eco-system.
Edited 2011-10-05 03:48 UTC
Same antenna issues again ? or fixed ?
Believing the hype I was surprised that Apple didn’t introduced the iphone 5 that was producing unicorn.
At least the voice assistant sound interesting for english speaking people.
Or French, or German… at launch… with more to come later.
… with piss poor quality compared to the english version..
I’m happy for all the visually impaired people who will get better voice command, because they can’t avoid it, but I don’t think that any sane person would want to use that instead of a GUI given the option.
Needing to speak in an unnaturally slow and distinct fashion, waiting for laggy mobile networks and saturated servers, talking loud about private things to a machine in public, looking for the right keyword anytime you reach the boundaries of the natural language recognition system, all that only to have an ugly robotic voice from the Uncanny Valley answer you that it didn’t understand your everyday metaphor on an embarassing subject… Is the cool factor really high enough to justify this when alternatives exist ?
Neolander,
“Is the cool factor really high enough to justify this when alternatives exist ?”
I would say the answer is yes. People will act based on perceptions of what is cool, regardless of what is practical.
Could be useful when drive.
But, honestly I never would talk to some phone/computer in my office, street, train or at home.
Good point, although I wouldn’t recommend driving when doing anything else
… or during the winter when wearing thick gloves
… or when recording a memo you would like to be searchable/browsable (actually, it would be much more useful if Voice Recognition made voice memos searchable transparently, like one-note once tried)
… or when jogging/riding a bicycle/doing any exercises
… or listening to the music/ebook, wanting to control your player sitting in a pocket.
Edited 2011-10-05 20:43 UTC
Something which I’ve not considered yet : in each of these voice command use cases, how convenient would it be to have to hold a home button pressed in order to trigger the Siri feature ?
Well, it would preety much invalidate them completely. Is it the case?
Thought so, but as it turns out, I shouldn’t try to read a liveblog when I’m tired, it makes me miss important details. Siri can also work with a button on bluetooth headsets, if available. I don’t know if it’s very practical either, though, because you have to hold it pressed while you speak.
(By the way, I think that Apple try to fit too much in the iPhone’s one button design. One single button for going to the home screen, switching tasks, and voice command begins to feel seriously crowded)
Edited 2011-10-06 19:42 UTC
Neolander,
“By the way, I think that Apple try to fit too much in the iPhone’s one button design. One single button for going to the home screen, switching tasks, and voice command begins to feel seriously crowded”
Speaking more broadly, I remember when consumer equipment was making the transition from dedicated physical controls to multi-modal digital ones. I used to think that the new products, while undoubtedly winning the “cool factor”, were much less efficient to use. Multi-modal digital controls require our brains to perform full I/O. Well designed physical controls can be used blindly – using muscle memory only.
My old phone had a dedicated volume switch, my current one requires me to jump through the menus to change the volume, it’s a major annoyance during a call. Getting rid of/hiding mostly useless buttons on an overly complex remote control = helpful. Getting rid of buttons which everyone understands just to achieve some minimalistic style = not helpful.
Speaking of putIting too much on a single button, I believe you might like this : toastytech.com/guis/heater.html
More generally a nice website to have a look at, love especially this piece : toastytech.com/guis/uirant.html
One of my main gripes against touchscreens on a phone, in strong competition with utter lack of precision and requiring powerful hardware to work properly.
Edited 2011-10-07 06:21 UTC
Neolander,
The heater’s a good example. I’ve seen digitally controlled fans with obnoxious overloaded buttons too. It’s style over function.
Also, it appears that microsoft has subscribed to a number of the ideas on that list…
“To get the most screen space, force your application to always run maximized.”
“When possible, disable window management and use unusual, oddly placed graphics for the windowing functions such as the window close option.”
“Always crash at a critical step and then display a fake apology to the user.”
“Rent extra UI space in your application out for advertising. Advertising benefits the users and your wallet.”
btw, if they demonstrate I can reasonably *navigate* media library, rss news, notes using voice I’m sold.
It’s not about the ‘cool’. When I am driving or jogging or cycling with my kids I am in no position to pull out my phone and start typing. If there is a text message or an email or when I want to look up directions because I get lost I am pretty screwed.
Being able to ask your ‘assistant’ what’s happening and then ask it to schedule stuff or whatever is very helpful in many circumstances.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think Siri is anyway magical. I can’t, for example, ask it which way to turn on an intersection or what’s the best exit for a gas station or (I don’t think) if there is any email or text messages from my wife. This is just a first step but it’s a pretty big step forward.
A better solution will, no doubt, come from Google or Microsoft and the will spur Apple to a better solution of it’s own and so on. But certainly a voice interface is going to be a part of our future. (It’s actually part of our present if you include all that annoying stuff the credit card and airline companies do.)
]{
PS. The assistant stuff does not require an internet connection, just the dictation, so it’s plenty fast.
In these circumstances, the reason why you cannot free a hand and an eye to use a cellphone normally is that you must concentrate on something that you’re doing. Chatting unnaturally with a computer voice interface is probably not a good way to keep focused in such a situation
In fact, ironically enough, I wonder if old-gen alphanumeric keypads would not be the best fit. Unlike fancy touchscreens and voice interfaces, they are predictable enough that you can use them through pure muscle memory, only watching what’s happening on screen infrequently.
Well, on my last two phones, based on Symbian S60 and bada respectively, I could know about ongoing calendar events just by unlocking the phone and looking at a home screen widget, then see a full view where I can add new events just by clicking one of the ongoing entries. I acknowledge that the iOS home screen design is somewhat more limited though, so iOS users who like voice interfaces would indeed see improvements for this use case.
I’m not sure how much of a big step forward it is. Voice interfaces have been around for some time now, with varying degrees of success. Even on mobile phones, it’s not new.
I think that for a smooth voice interface experience, you should rather look on IBM’s side. After all, Watson did relatively well facing and answering the questions of Jeopardy, although the amount of pressure that IBM put on the game’s team make the neutrality of the conversation with the computer questionable.
My bad, I was pretty sure that I had read on Engadget’s report that some sort of cloud data processing was used to get higher-quality voice recognition. Otherwise, it remains to be seen how well the voice analysis algorithm will perform in everyday use by people who speak normally fast, sing, breathe violently (your “running” use case), etc.
Edited 2011-10-05 19:41 UTC
I agree with that but, as practical matter, some communication with your family or your friends is always going to part of the equation. Talking to a device is far safer then looking at and typing on a device.
I think that there a couple of things that distinguish Siri from the current crop of voice enabled devices …
1) It’s actually pretty accurate in it’s ability to recognize what your asking about. It does not require a command language. That flexibility makes a big difference. I’ve owned my car for 3 years and I never use the voice interface because I never remember the exact keywords.
2) It’s pretty open ended in what you can ask. I can say: ‘play me some techno’. I can’t do that with my car or any other phone I’ve tried. I hear they will be adding iClouds doc integration so I’ll be able to ask for stuff like ‘pull up the last power point I worked on’.
3) It understands context. You can do one thing, do something else and then implicitly reference the first thing or even combine the two things and it gets that. Or you can ask it to augment a previous command which is also cool.
4) It can a ask you questions to clarify things. Not only ‘do you want to send this message to Steve’ but also things like ‘do you mean Steve Jobs or Steve Balmer’ and you can answer ‘Blamer’. That example is not rocket science but it’s still super helpful.
On the other hand it’s disappointing that not all apps are well integrated. Sure the weather app can tell you if it will rain and the temperature but why can’t the currency conversion feature just tell me how much $45 is in Euro rather than showing me an app. I am sure that sort of stuff will come though, if not from Apple then from others.
So anyway I think this stuff has a great future. I’d love to see it on my desktop too.
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Um, what? I don’t think you know the first thing about how we access these devices. I, for one, don’t touch and can’t stand doing things by voice command. It’s Voiceover in the case of iOS (for Android there are several options) that we need, and that has as much to do with voice recognition as Apple does to fair competition. It’s voice *output* that we need, not recognition. Please do your research before you start talking about this subject; there’s already enough misinformation of this kind out there as it is.
I stand corrected then. It was my guess that current voice interfaces exist in spite of their technological immaturity because it is very hard (maybe flagging it as impossible was a bit strong) to use a pointing device, especially one which doesn’t provide hovering actions such as a touchscreen, when you can’t see a thing.
Edited 2011-10-05 22:12 UTC
799,1 USD for the 8GB iPhone 4 in the .SE site whilst it is only ‘549 in the US store’*
Why is it so much more expensive in sweden? The extra 3 letters perhaps? =D
*(Source is apple.com/se for the prices, and the SEK changes day to day from the price of the dollar, used to be 10-11SEK on a USD, now it is only ~6,* SEK per USD)
Wonder what the prices of the 4S and 5 will be?
The SE price includes VAT right? And VAT in Sweden is almost 30% or something insane like that.
The US price does not include tax but many of us still pay our local state taxes on top (in my case it’s about 8%).
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The 4S is AUD799 (USD770) in Australia. The Samsung Galaxy S2 is widely available for around AUD550.
25%, so 549 * 1.25 = 686.25, though I thought that iPhone unlocked costs about $650, whitch would correspond to $811 with 25% tax